School trips to the zoo, trekking with college friends, celebrating new years in Kerala, bachelor’s party in Goa, honeymoon in Manali, weekend getaways with spouse and then full stop!
A Big Full Stop!
That full stop is not because you didn’t get an appraisal but because you were appraised as a parent, and that’s when you start chaining that wanderer in you!
Is that your story?
Are you a young parent whose friend list is depleting as you don’t travel with them anymore?
Take a deep breath and read on, at the end of this blog, you are going to get busy packing your bags for a travel with your li’l ones!
#1 – Family team building and bonding
We need to take the highly exaggerated corporate term ‘team building’ on a personal front today!
A family is like a team, supposed to function smoothly. But in the world of nuclear family, working parents, nanny governed childhoods, it is common to see families who are not in sync!
Travelling gives the family a chance to actually sit together in a car or a train compartment leaving their daily chores behind and spend exclusive time together. The field of psychology gives immense importance to spending time together to experience love and bonding. Travelling together gives you that opportunity!
#2 – Enormous learnings which can not be achieved within four walls
Because of fast moving world, today’s children hardly get a chance to learn from our surroundings. Because in order to learn one must observe first and where is the time for that? I say, to observe it we need to travel first!
We may experience, see, feel varied things while travelling. From serene nature to inspiring human engineering! I have never seen a child not amazed by the enormity of a waterfall or not being curious about trains or the escalators at airports, the fireflies in the woods and what not. The first step to learning is asking the right questions and gaining new experiences while travelling is one of the best ways to realize these questions. Possibilities are endless with a child so I think it is our duty to show them and share with them what we already know and then answer all the why’s to the best of our ability. That’s what keeps the wheels of the world turning.
#3 – Learn to cherish experiences over materialistic things
Source: flickr.com/photos/aurimas_m/4442078230
A recent Cornell study showed, experiences are more satisfying in long run than possessing expensive things like big screen TV or a costly watch! It makes perfect sense if you think of your school days, do you enjoy remembering the color of the fancy sharpener you flaunted at school? Or the prank you played with your BFFs during recess! A child with varied travel experiences would definitely grow to become a wise individual and not just a puppet of consumerism hypnotised to buy unworthy things!
#4 – Kids become responsible and alert
This is for the parents who avoid travelling as they claim their toddlers are unruly and/or are over active! If you start travelling when kids are young and give them small responsibilities like taking care of their soft toy,
remembering in which backpack pocket did mommy keep their favorite candy or even reminding dad to turn off the lights of the house before leaving – makes them feel ‘involved’ and ‘responsible’.
Kids become unruly when they feel adults don’t treat them equally. kids love to be treated as a responsible person! Travelling can provide best grounds to make kids realise that they are contributing equally to the game of travel!
Travelling also instigates us to remain alert and aware of our surroundings! We might never realise but being alert itself needs a lot of mental energy. Hence parents of the hyperactive kids can teach their children to observe and be aware of things happening around them and can channelise the overflowing energy they possess
Overall, in long term kids who travel are more alert and know what is happening around them. This makes them an active member of the surrounding and in turn helps sculpting a good personality.
#5 – Travel can make children adaptable
Kids at home tend to become brats as they never faced tough situations. Thanks to the loving parents. I call such parents as ‘cushion parents’ as they always try to fill those empty spaces of discomfort for their little ones with rainbows and unicorns!
But travel reveals the practical side of life as well which may or may not be as rosy as painted by parents at home! Travel teaches that it is absolutely okay to tolerate a little discomfort so as to safeguard a bigger objective! They observe the situations that may arise and how adults tackle them! They learn by watching you – negotiating with co-passenger for the window seat, eating strange looking food without making faces or even giving away your travel pillow to an old sick stranger!
In short children who travel are more likely to be easygoing and adaptable when they grow up. It is high time to change the old saying of ‘family that eats together, stays together, to ‘family that travels together, stays together’!
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Neha
Neha Vishwas Jagtap is a travelling, oratory and parenting enthusiast who practices all three passions at same time hence found home in more than 55 cities across 7 countries till now. Neha has been successful in sharing the passion of travelling with her three year old daughter as well. Mommy travelled more than 65000 KMs and daughter has already bagged 5000 KMs in three years!
This post was originally published on Trodly Travel Blog.
Also Read: 6 Best Road Trips from Bangalore
Last Updated on November 12, 2018 by Rohan
